| Hidden Texts, Buried Meanings: Allegories, Symbols, and Metaphors - ENG 5283 - Spring 2008 | |
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Plato,Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus |
 Rather
than a tour through the mall of literary theory, this course
will take a particular path in the history of hermeneutics.
We will look at part of the the history of esotericism from
Plato to Patricia Highsmith. This will require
digging, and a level of attention that might seem taxing
at times. We will ask some basic questions, such as
Kermode does in his book -- "Why are some narratives obscure?"
How are things hidden in writing? Is this always a secondary effect, or
are the psychoanalysts correct that we also (1) hide things,
like the truth, from ourselves, and/or (2) refuse to see? We will also think about the ways
in which ideology impacts our capacities for clear vision.
That is, we apparently have the capacity to live a grand
illusion, and not necessarily as a
Second Life."Allegory is not a playful illustrative technique, but a form of expression, just as speech is expression, and, indeed, just as writing is." Walter Benjamin makes that declaration in The Origin of German Tragic Drama (162 in the standard translation). As Renaissance authors used to say, confirming Benjamin's point above, allegory is the captain of all rhetorical figures of speech. For that reason alone, the topic of allegory deserves our attention. Part of the task involves developing salient distinctions among allegory, figuration, metaphor, and symbol, and delving into epistemological and political considerations (e.g., Plato's "Seventh Letter"). |
 Patricia Highsmith (above) was born in Fort Worth in 1921. Patricia Highsmith's mother tried to abort her by drinking turpentine. Later in life, she said to her daughter: "It's funny you like the smell of turpentine, Pat." Highsmith spent much of her adult life in Switzerland and France, and she was educated at Barnard College, where she studied English, Latin, and Greek. In 1957 Highsmith won the French Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere and the British Crime Writers Association awarded her a Silver Dagger in 1964. In 1979 she received the Grand Master award by the Swedish Academy of Detection. |